Singapore maths, also known as the “mastery approach,” is a method of teaching mathematics that’s most prevalent in Shanghai, China, and Singapore.

Under the mastery approach, students learn a specific concept before moving on to more complex ideas, in a rigidly linear progression, Alexei Vernitski, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, wrote in The Conversation.

In Shanghai schools that use the method, students aren’t grouped by their perceived intellectual abilities. Instead, all students perform the same work at the same time before mastering the concept and advancing to the next one together.

By contrast, US schools teach maths using the “mindset approach,” which aims to teach students a more intuitive understanding of maths concepts by starting with a broader concept before breaking down a problem into the specific steps for solving.

For example, “a mindset-approach teacher can introduce addition via joining two heaps of cardboard counters (or other props) together, explore properties of addition via activities, and only then break the process of adding numbers into procedural steps,” Vernitski wrote.